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Bending Time, Space, and Image: Bart O’Reilly Interviews Laura Buckley

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I have been friends with London-based Irish installation artist Laura Buckley since the late 1990’s when we were both studying painting at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland. I was always interested in the way that she painted and, even though as undergrads we did not really talk much about the ideas behind the work, I was always very responsive to her aesthetic. She introduced me early on to the work of Luc Tuymans and this had a lasting effect on my interests in color and content.

Since then, her work has evolved from a deep engagement with late 20th century painting concerns to include mirrors, projections and digital media. But these are just her tools. The work itself involves the viewer in highly visual experience that seems pleasurable yet serious at the same time. She bends our experience of time, space and image and often opens a place for the viewer as a key part in the event of seeing her work. She says, “I create work for the viewer to become an integral part of and it is my wish that the viewer has a shared experience with whoever else is in the space.” What intrigues me personally is the work’s openness to chance and it’s confident, yet seemingly casual, approach.

After graduating from NCAD, Laura and I showed work as part of Group Six. The idea behind this group was to see if we could continue painting in an art world that seemed to continually question it’s validity. The other artists in the group were Robbie O’Halloran, Tadhg McSweeney, Alice Peillon and Coilin Rush. We started the shows in the Rubicon Gallery in Dublin and then toured at several venues around Ireland and Northern Ireland. After this, we went our separate ways but continued our individual practices. In 2006, I included her work in a show at Load Of Fun in Baltimore called ‘Seven Irish Artists.’ To this day, I still have Baltimore painters ask me about her work. I decided to  interview Laura to find out how, despite being apart and out of touch for about seven years, our work continued to display similar concerns and sensibilities.

Fata Morgana
Fata Morgana

Bart O’Reilly: Having not seen any of your work in years except for the occasional Facebook post I was struck by several things. Your use of sound in a piece like ‘Fata Morgana’ seems highly developed and integral now to the work. I know that you have always loved music. Can you say more about your interest in sound and where this comes from in terms of other artists who deal with sound or music?

Laura Buckley: I studied piano for most of my childhood and into my teens. My parents really encouraged me musically and also with dance but not so much with visual art. This was something I discovered for myself and I found it a much freer way to express myself, through painting and drawing. I was shy so therefore attracted to the more non -performative element of art making.

However, being a teenager in rural Ireland before the internet I hadn’t been fully exposed to contemporary art. I had a much more direct cerebral and emotional connection with the bands I was listening to. So it seems my early interests and passions have all come together very naturally later on. My first films were silent and it was a very gradual process working with sound at first on my own and then going on to collaborate with different musicians. I was influenced early on (when I was still working with painting and installation) by the work and writings of John Cage, and on moving to London 10 years ago I was into the sound/moving image work of Seb Patane and other artists incorporating sound.

Fata Morgana from Laura Buckley on Vimeo.

THE MAGIC KNOW-HOW (excerpt, 2.25 of 9.20 mins) from Laura Buckley on Vimeo.

BO: I was never aware of Cage being an influence on you when you were painting. I came to him a much later, I really only had a passing knowledge of his use chance operations and his influence on Robert Rauschenberg when I was in Dublin. It wasn’t until graduate school in Baltimore that I really investigated his work and writing. What was it that you took from Cage before you were making digital work? I mean, how did he effect your painting?

LB: Our tutor Blaise Drummond turned me onto Cage when I was breaking away from the canvas support and moving from pictorial painting into exploring pure surface and materiality. I was questioning the function of painting, trying to justify why I was still doing it. Cage’s writings on music and noise and sound in general made me think about how I could allow more stuff from life to come directly into my practice.

At the time I was cutting up doors and shutters incorporating them into installations, but the mirror came in which was a big shift for me. I was working with gloss paint a lot and thinking about how the reflection in the surface became the representational element of my work. Where before I was always moving between abstraction and representation, now I could do both together. So I started working directly with different types of mirrors and Perspex and also cutting holes in walls to expose the actual support. And really examining the architecture and limitations that the work and the viewer existed within.

With works like ‘Fata Morgana’ I’m using everyday sounds and voices and mechanical noises combined with synth sounds I make on Garageband or more recently with looping things on Vine. I like to build up the energy of the piece with repetition where I’m sometimes creating a heightened state of euphoria, that might come back down to a more contemplative state, which maybe then passes into a more sinister or anxious phase. So the work is always reflecting life and how our moods or states of mind transform constantly.

BO: And still on the subject of influences, I remember you were looking a lot at Luc Tuyman’s work when you were painting and even when you started installation work. You were both using color, but the colors were dark and muted. Now you seem to embrace a full palette of digital color with your projections. The new work seems more playful in relation to color. Did this happen gradually?

LB: My use of both color and moving image directly came about when I became a mother. Before 2005 I had been reluctant to include any personal or emotional element within my practice. I was trying to be a macho painter, and having a baby completely changed my perspective, as it does with all parents to some level. So this combined with allowing footage from my life into my installations led to me celebrating color much more. And approaching my work in a more celebratory way.

BO: There is a link to minimalism’s emphasis on the viewer where by you often leave space for the them to complete the work. But I think that you are also creating a world for them to enter into. It is quite immersive and pleasurable both visually and aurally. What’s has been a really satisfying response that you have had from a viewer in recent years?

LB: The most rewarding thing is when I install work after months or years of planning and it comes to life. The motivation when I’m producing the work is imagining stepping into it, physically entering it. It is so much about the body and scale and gravity and attempting to elevate everyday life into a more sensitively heightened dimension.

I rarely have very rigid plans when installing, so I improvise a lot over a few days with various videos on various projectors and moving the structures around. Also I edit the films up to the last minute, normally finishing them just before a show opens. I like to see how they work in the space before I finish them or decide on the final combination of videos. So it’s always quite a last minute affair. Once the work is installed and I see the reactions on the viewer’s face that’s the best feeling. It’s wonderful to ignite such joyful and openly happy facial expressions, regardless of age. My children are often with me when I’m making my work and I love how children can engage with and play in my work.

At The Summerhouse from Laura Buckley on Vimeo.

BO: I would like to hear more about your children’s role in the creative process.

LB: When I’m filming or scanning they are often with me, which is nice. So you might see their hand gestures moving something or hear a snippet of their voice in the background. I love that because when I look back on older works I’m reminded of their voices from years ago. But I don’t include them for sentimental reasons, I consider the multiple meanings of the phrases they come out with, which are usually questionings of the world and how they perceive simple things. This is happening less as they get older and more articulate, I was intrigued by that early naïve response to things.

BO: Can you talk about the emphasis on your studio process that has been evident in the work for many years?

LB: The most integral thing recently with my studio process has been my relationship to technology. I never set out to work with moving image, we bought a camera to film our first daughter when she was born in 2005 and I discovered I could express my ideas more directly in this way. Technology has developed so much since then that led to a lot more of my real life experience coming into my work. Where starting out I would need to head out with a camera heavy bag to film, these days I film mostly on my iphone. This made a huge change to how I approached my subject matter and dissolved the boundaries between my work and my life. Now they completely merge into one.

BO: There is also a sense that you are revealing the making process in the work itself, early videos that I remember from your show at Load of Fun here in Baltimore in 2006 were full of shots of making and unmaking and the kind of thing that studio artists get involved in. The more recent work has less of this but it’s still there, is this deliberate or just the result of having a digital camera around?

LB: I’ve always been concerned with de-mystifying process. I want to keep things open. Maybe it comes from a non-art background, and wanting to include the viewer. Basically it’s putting a system out there, and allowing the viewer to become part of it. It’s always moving between studio activities, and real life, and more recently going back into the scans and navigating reality through interface windows.

To see more of Laura Buckley’s work, check her website here.

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